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Pathway in shady woods past bluestem palm

Moonshine Creek Trails

Delicate Appalachian wildflowers bloom in the deep shade of a slope forest surrounding Moonshine Creek, a stream that vanishes into an enormous marshy sinkhole.

San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park  |  Gainesville
( 29.714546,-82.460864 )      2.5 miles

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Throughout Gainesville, creeks simply vanish into the ground, becoming part of the Floridan Aquifer. The Moonshine Creek Trail provides an up close look at one.

Originally a showy loop around its namesake creek, the trail expanded to include a scramble around and into a large marshy sinkhole that swallows the creek.

Man walking past needle palms The trail is largely in deep shade


Called the Creek Sink Trail, the second loop is an optional extension to the hike. Taking the perimeter loop makes for a 2.5 mile hike.

Between enormous, towering hardwoods surrounding the sink and delicate Appalachian wildflowers along the creek, this walk is both botanically and geologically interesting.

Small oak with big leaves Dwarf chinkapin oak


Resources

Resources for exploring the area
Five Star Trails Gainesville Ocala book cover North Florida Panhandle Explorers Guide book cover 50 Hikes in North Florida book cover Hikers Guide to the Sunshine State book cover  
Disclosure: As authors and affiliates, we receive earnings when you buy these through our links. This helps us provide public information on this website.

Overview

Location: Gainesville
Length: 2.5 mile loop
Trailhead: 29.714546,-82.460864
Address: 11101 Millhopper Road, Gainesville
Fees: $4 vehicle, $2 per pedestrian or cyclist
Restroom: At the trailhead
Land manager: Florida State Parks
Phone: 352-955-2008
 
Open 8 AM to sunset. Leashed pets welcome, but please do not go off trail with them. Use insect repellant as the mosquitos on this shady trail can be persistent.

Directions

 
From Interstate 75, exit 390, take SR 222 (NW 39th Ave) west 2.9 miles to CR 241 (NW 143rd Street). Turn right. Drive 2 miles north to Millhopper Road (NW 69th Ave) and turn right. Continue 2 miles to the parking area on the south side of the road.

Hike

This hike is on the south side of Millhopper Rd. From the parking area, walk towards the picnic pavilion and follow the trail turning left past it to a kiosk with a map.

Continue along this path to a T intersection and turn right to enter a sandhill habitat, climbing a slight hill up and over a needle-strewn rise paralleling Millhopper Rd.

Hiking man in laurel oak forest Hiking through the laurel oaks


Dwarf chinkapin oaks, short specimens with serrated leaves, rise from the leaf litter. The trail sweeps right, entering climax sandhill dense with laurel oaks.

After a quarter mile, a sign points left. This is the start of the loop on the Moonshine Creek Trail, descending quickly into deciduous forest on a narrow, steep, and rooty footpath.

Tree rising out of a sinkholeTrailside sinkhole


Sugarberry, hackberry, and oaks tower overhead in a layered canopy. It’s an almost continual descent, with roots forming a staircase in one spot.

Near an arrow marker, the landscape falls off precipitously into a sinkhole. The trail levels out once it reaches the floodplain of Moonshine Creek, passing a swamp chestnut oak.

Man on bridge in woods Pausing for a look at Moonshine Creek


Reach the bridge at 0.6 mile. Wildflowers more commonly associated with the Appalachians thrive along its banks, including trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit.

The stream is clear and sand-bottomed, sluicing its way through the forest. After you cross the bridge, it’s a climb uphill past limestone-loving spleenwort ferns to cross a swale.

Pond in a deep swale in woods Sinkhole pond


A sinkhole cradles a dark pond, its mucky shores decorated with raccoon tracks. Curving up and away from the pond, pass bluestem palms. Sundial lupine carpets the forest floor.

Beyond a cluster of needle palms is a massive massive slash pine with an odd indent to its trunk, as if an elephant had leaned on it. Its branches start more than seventy feet above.

View up a pine trunk in shaded forest Look up the trunk to take the measure of this tree


Dropping off this small ridge, the trail descends into the floodplain of Moonshine Creek to meet its junction with the Creek Sink Trail at 0.8 mile.

A bridge is over Moonshine Creek to the right. Turn left to stay on the outer loop. If you want a shorter hike, use the inner loop to skip the big sink and knock a mile off this hike.

creek and bridge in lush forest Bridge over the creek


Blazing switches from yellow discs to red ones, but the trail is always obvious. It drops into a rooty, sometimes damp floodplain where switchcane thrives and curves right.

Turning left, scramble out of the floodplain to the top of a small limestone ridge, where trillium grow along the slope.

Trillium cluster no blooms The trillium bloom in late January-early February


The trail curves through this dense hardwood hammock before dropping steeply back into the floodplain.

Cinnamon fern and bluestem palm grow in swales beneath the trees. A thick steel cable, perhaps left behind by the moonshiners working the still, coils out of the forest floor.

Large trees with trail between Bottomland along the creek


Passing through a stand of young spruce pines at about a mile, the trail descends past two trees in a close embrace. Trees in this part of the forest grow to significant heights.

Cross a bridge over an ephemeral stream at 1.1 miles, a willow marsh to its right. The trail soon climbs up a bluff.

Broad bridge under tree canopy Bridge in the forest


Looking down towards the willow marsh and uphill to the slope forest, it becomes obvious you’re inside a giant sinkhole and the marsh fills its bottom.

This is Creek Sink, the end of the line for Moonshine Creek. A short side trail leads to an overlook above the sink.

Man looking off dropoff to green water John takes a gander at the sink


Leaving the viewpoint, climb steeply, crossing a spot that gets muddy after a rain. Curving, the trail shows off how the forest drops precipitously towards the center of the sink.

Continue along a rapid descent complete with waterbars to minimize erosion, reminiscent of a hike in the Southern Appalachians.

Dense forest with view to dropoff Forested slope above Creek Sink


The habitat shifts from slope forest to a deciduous forest that also a haven for trees of increasingly amazing size.

Flattening out a little, the trail turns to provide another perspective of the willow marsh in the sinkhole.

Footpath past a clump of palms Trail in the slope forest


Walking beneath tall sweetgum and hickory, curve around the edge of the bottom of the big sink at its shoreline.

Following the edge of the willow marsh briefly, the trail provides a glimpse of open water in the middle of the sink.

Willows in a sinkhole Willow marsh in the sink


The trail turns away from the sink and begins its climb between tall loblolly pines into the deciduous forest. The distant hum you hear is Interstate 75.

Dropping through a small floodplain, make your way carefully across the spreading roots of large red maple trees while crossing the wetland.

Large pine next to trail Under the loblolly pines


Climbing a slope, the trail heads directly between the bases of two very tall pines. Notice the immense tree trunk on the right, and look up.

It’s an eastern hophornbeam, and it has to be more than a hundred feet tall. Now that’s a tree.

Close up of mottled tree trunk Trunk of the eastern hophornbeam


The trail zigzags up and up this slope, home to many massive trees, including a towering swamp chestnut oak. Soon after a red marker, the terrain flattens out.

Reach a brown sign at 2 miles. The Creek Sink Trail ends here. Turn left to continue along the outside loop using the Moonshine Creek Trail.

Red trail marker in forest Nearing the end of the Creek Sink Trail


Traffic sounds filter in from Millhopper Road. With a thick, gray-splotched trunk, the sugar hackberry on the right looks like it is made of poured concrete.

The path broadens among the laurel oaks and slash pines. An old forest road comes in from an angle from the left, and a sign points to the “Exit.”

Enormous tree with gray trunk Sugar hackberry


Passing a trail on the right, the descent you took into the ravine at Moonshine Creek, you’ve completed the loop.

Follow the broad path back through the sandhills to the trailhead to complete this 2.5 mile hike.

Trailhead kiosk Returning to the trailhead


Trail Map

San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park Trail Map
This trail is the loop south of the parking symbol

Explore More!

Learn more about San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park

Broad path through tall trees in open forest San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park Florida's weird karst geology meets a forest of towering hardwood trees in this botanically significant preserve on the edge of Gainesville.

Slideshow

See our photos of the Moonshine Creek Trails


Nearby Adventures

More worth exploring while you’re in this area.

Devils Millhopper Nature Trail Devil’s Millhopper Nature Trail The Devils Millhopper Nature Trail circles the lip of an enormous sinkhole before plunging down into it on a series of staircases and landings with views of natural waterfalls.
Alfred Ring Park Trail Alfred A. Ring Park Featuring a dense slope forest along Hogtown Creek with old-growth trees and rare wildflowers along Appalachian-style ravines, this is a scenic hike in the heart of Gainesville
Mill Creek Preserve Mill Creek Preserve Mill Creek Preserve encompasses 5-plus miles of hiking on nearly 1,200 acres of unexpected delights in an area well-known for its sinkholes and disappearing streams.
Prairie Creek at Prairie Creek Preserve Prairie Creek Preserve In the deep shade of the floodplain of Prairie Creek near Gainesville, Prairie Creek Preserve is a beauty spot provided to the public by the Alachua Conservation Trust

Trail Map (PDF) Official Website

Category: Day Hikes, Hikes, Loop Hikes, North Florida, TrailsTag: Big Trees, Birding, Botanical, Dog-friendly, Five Star Trails Gainesville Ocala, Florida State Parks, Gainesville, Geology, Picnic, San Felasco Hammock State Park, Scenic Hikes, Sinkholes, Wildflowers

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